


A Series of Set Dates

by Jalules



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Some Romance, canon typical body horror??, canon typical violence and weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 02:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jalules/pseuds/Jalules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two local teens attend a dance,</p>
<p>a misplaced intern finally has lunch,</p>
<p>a dragon takes on the justice system,</p>
<p>two grown men stay up past their bedtime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Series of Set Dates

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a series of prompts from tumblr.

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It is often difficult, in Night Vale, to set dates. What with there being so many fun and exciting things  going on in the community, as well the paranormal activity that’s always cropping up and throwing things off schedule. Add to that the fact that certain dates up and disappear from the calendar entirely, and you’ll have one hell of a time planning ahead.

The citizens of Night Vale do the best they can, though, and arrange all their get togethers and business meetings and charity luncheons as well as possible. Even with the constant turmoil in town, those who are determined enough will see their plans realized. Dates are set, some are broadcasted for all to hear, and occasionally, they are cancelled due to unknown circumstances.

On this particular date, so far, nothing has gone wrong. There have been no strange lights, no suspicious fumes, no shadowy figures. There has only been one disappearance, and it was short lived, as the parakeets of 24 Sundial Drive were returned promptly, with an anonymous letter of apology for the all the trouble.

On this date, everything is running smoothly, like clockwork, if clockwork were really a standard for anything in Night Vale.  

On this date, everyone gets to where they need to be. They meet the people they wanted to be with, and accomplish the things they needed to get done. There is a dance. There is a meal. There is a hearing. There is a study. There are many moments shared.

.

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The Night Vale High School Senior Prom is held at 8 PM in City Hall’s main chamber. It is the largest indoor space available for little to no charge, aside from the school gym, which is currently full of sharks, and therefore not a viable option.

There are only so many jokes about an ‘Under the Sea’ theme that the class president is willing to take before she hauls off and slaps someone.

Michael Sandero makes no such jokes. He is reasonably happy with the ‘Starlight Star Bright, but Mostly Void’ theme they ended up going with. He doesn’t remember voting on the theme, but then, he doesn’t remember a lot of things, and figures it doesn’t really matter anyway.

Senior prom is more of a formality than anything, especially in his case. He still has another year to get through at good old Night Vale High, a fact that his second, much more intelligent head is not at all pleased with.

He’s just finishing up his Junior year, and doing pretty well, considering all the, you know, body changes and shifts in reality and unwavering, expectant gazes around every corner.

Puberty, am I right?

He’s only attending tonight’s prom because he was invited, and he was only invited because the girl who extended the invitation, one Mariana Warszawski, had noticed him staring at her in the hallway in a slack jawed, bewitched sort of way and started laughing, eventually calling him over and asking if he wanted to hang out some time.

So they hung out one time. Two times, if you count the day at the mall with her friend Tiffany, which Michael doesn’t really.

Then she asked him if he wanted to go to the stupid prom with her.

Naturally he said yes. Turning down the invitation would be rude, not to mention stupid when it was coming from someone as pretty and smart and funny and really just plain _cool_ as her. Besides, explaining to the City Council why he hadn’t fulfilled his obligation to complete Social Activity Ritual number 264 would be a big pain in the ass.

So they go to prom.

They pose for pictures outside her parent’s house, his tie matching the satiny blue of her gown. They break a bottle of her father’s best wine on the front walkway, cut their palms with a shard of glass each, and clutch each other’s blood smeared hands, smiling wide, slightly giddy, still a little awkward, while her mother forgets to turn on the flash.

They hop in Mariana’s car and drive to City Hall. She steers like a pro, keeping cool even as the sirens sound and the race begins. Michael swings his door open at just the right times, beaning a few straggling couples as they hurry down Main on foot.

The captain of the swim team and her girlfriend nearly run them off the road just short of the goal, having kicked out their limo driver and hijacked the vehicle themselves, but with some skillful maneuvering, Mariana skids her own car to a stop in the parking lot, leaving a pair of furious young women in their wake. She and Michael high-five to celebrate their victory, as is custom.

They walk arm in arm, calmly, under the silver balloon arch, through the main entrance. They give their names to the drowsy looking chaperone and collect their complimentary cans of bear mace. The chaperone, a math teacher from a class neither has ever had, asks if Michael needs an additional can for his other head.

He says no, that, thank god, that head is meditating.

He’s in a very, very deep trance right now. It’s something he’s taken up recently, and Michael is grateful. It gives him more time to himself, and forces his mother to acknowledge his existence again.

But thank you, he adds, a moment too late.

 “Oh look how cute,” Mariana says, gesturing to the can of mace in her hand as they slip into the main hall, “They put little ribbons on them.”

Michael hums in agreement, though he is honestly thinking that Mariana is much cuter than a can of bear mace with a ribbon on it.

“The decorations in here aren’t bad either,” Mariana says, and Michael follows her gaze, taking in the glitter and streamers and balloons, “For a bunch of cheap garbage, I mean.”

They hardly look cheap at all, all strung up and perfectly placed like this. Some of it is, Michael suspects, actually garbage. Mostly that bit in the far corner with the broken sofa and empty milk bottles stuffed full of confetti.

They stand and look around. They think about finding a table. They do not think about getting punch, because punch is absolutely not allowed at senior proms, or any dance or otherwise jovial school events. Not since the fishing incident.

Michael suggests that they dance. It is a prom, after all.

Mariana hesitates. She says, “I don’t really dance…at least not to ominous chanting.”

And true, the music is a little off putting. As are the few vacant looking students wandering the dance floor, the only other people in the expansive room at the moment. Michael suspects the rest of the student body is still out on the streets, very possibly doing battle with the baseball bats and meat cleavers that were previously stashed in their cars.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” Mariana asks, and she sounds so like a character in a clichéd coming of age movie that Michael’s second head comes slightly out of his trance, managing to scoff pompously before murmuring a few words in Hindi and drifting off again.

But of course Michael wants to get out of there and of course they do and of course they make sure to take umbrellas on the way out because it might rain, and if it doesn’t, they will still make handy weapons.

They get back into Mariana’s car and simply sit a while. She reads the back of the can of bear mace, and Michael stares at her, slightly slack jawed and absolutely bewitched.

He tells her, since he can’t remember if he said it at all tonight, even though he really meant to, that she looks beautiful.

She smiles. His heart jumps a little. His second head snores.

“My flowers don’t match,” She says, and after his gaze drops to the corsage on her wrist, she jerks her chin to get his attention, intending him to look up, “The ones up here, I mean.”

Michael looks up.

He’d honestly forgotten about the flowers in her head.

They’re bright and pink and full, possibly chrysanthemums although he doesn’t know a damn thing about plants, and every one stems straight out of her hair line, framing her face in a circlet of blooms. He’s asked her about them before, that one time they hung out, as politely as possible, and she said that they were no big deal. They were even kind of okay, she guessed.

It’s the ones that sprout out of other follicles that are a bitch to deal with.

They sit in Mariana’s car and talk about the trouble with matching your outfit to the flowers on your head, and the trouble with finding shirts that fit you when you have a second head entirely.

They talk about head trouble and head trauma and how many times Michael has taken a football to the face, and somewhere in the middle of a story about how once, when she was six, Mariana fell on the back patio at her house and split her head open like a friggin’ melon, Michael asks if he can kiss her.

She laughs, and then she nods.

A gang of bloodied, bedraggled students lurch toward City Hall, determined to get to their prom before they miss the single slow dance, (always to the classic Whitney Houston performance of “I Will Always Love You,” but with the middle bit sort of static and garbled from subliminal messaging.)

Across the parking lot, inside a car filled with twice the number of defensive weapons recommended by the Sheriff’s Secret Police, two teenagers kiss.

Mariana smells faintly of cinnamon. She is the prettiest, smartest, funniest, _coolest_ girl Michael has ever met, and he starts to think maybe there’s something to be said for all this prom business.

A few streets away, something, or someone, howls.

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Sitting in the direct center of the dog park, at what she can only assume is 10 PM, judging by the digital read out on her phone, Dana, an intern of the community radio station, is playing solitaire.

It is the free version that came with her phone, and while it passes the time well enough, she’s always a little disappointed when the cards don’t dance across the screen at the end of the game the way they did in the version that came with her father’s old work computer.

She is tired, she is hungry, and she is, she supposes, technically being held captive in unsafe conditions, but so long as she is able to play a card game on her cell phone, she figures she is still at the ‘first world problems’ level of issues in the grand scheme of things.

She thinks the phrase alongside a hash tag and sighs. She might get service out here, but the wifi is spotty. She hasn’t updated her blog in forever.

She uncovers the King of Hearts, and tries not to think too much about why her phone is still working, despite not having been charged for days. She also tries not to think too much about when her title of community radio station intern will be taken away due to lack of service.

She really needs this for her resume.

A few feet away, reclining on a bench that was never meant to be used, former mayor Pamela Winchell is humming softly. There is something warm and attractive about her face when she’s relaxed, something almost comforting. Dana knows that as soon as she opens her eyes she will resume the business of looking fierce and slightly frantic, a woman who will do whatever she has to.

Dana admires her, somewhat, but does not entirely trust her.

She is one of the better, and also more terrifying things, about being in the dog park.

A few feet in the other direction, a pack of feral dogs sits close together, sniffing around behind each other’s ears and muttering about “the system.” Every once in a while, one of them howls.

She has only spoken to one of the dogs, the leader, and while he was very eloquent and interesting, she did not feel especially comfortable talking to him at length. His ideas are a touch too radical for her taste, and his whole pack’s view on violence against human children is slightly appalling. A few of the other dogs seem friendly, but considering most of them wear mirrored sunglasses, it is hard to judge their expressions.

They seem impressed with her though, and have asked her to talk social issues over lunch sometime, which was nice.

They mayor, or rather, former mayor, has also asked her to lunch. She suggested they get together and discuss the possibility of Dana exploring a career in politics, because according to her, she would just be _great_. The invitation is, again, very nice, but as Dana has pointed out several times, they have no food, and that makes having a lunch sort of difficult.

The former mayor had just laughed and laughed.

The dogs howled in response.

Dana texted her boss about it, but left out some of the more confusing details.

She tends to think of both parties as a bit like Scylla and Charybdis, though she isn’t sure which is which.

After another disappointing solitaire win, Dana turns off her phone, just in case she needs to conserve power, even though she is pretty certain she doesn’t, and slips it into her pocket.

On the park bench, Pamela Winchell is tapping her fingernails against a tiny plaque that reads ‘Graciously Donated to the Night Vale Dog Park by Sandra T. Koening, In Memory of a Memory.’

A few feet away, the feral dogs all sit up, alert.

Although Dana had not realized, one dog out of the bunch has not been present. When it returns to the pack, it is carrying something in its mouth.

It places the item at the feet of the dog’s leader, who nods approvingly with all three heads. The lead dog clears his throat in a growl and turns to Dana, who is already watching with interest.

“Second Battalion has recovered an unopened package of saltines,” He says, and Dana looks to the dog she assumes is the entirety of the Second Battalion. It’s a squat little bulldog mix, and it is wagging its stub of a tail proudly, “I’d like to extend the offer to do lunch once again.”

Dana can’t see any good reason to say no.

“Wow, thanks,” She says, standing up and brushing a few bits of grass off her backside, “That’s really generous of you.”

She hopes that she sounds sincere and not sarcastic. Her tone is an unfortunate side effect of time spent as a teenager followed quickly by years of internet usage.

She takes a seat closer to the dogs, still on the grass, still a little wary of their mirrored sunglasses, but thrilled at the idea of finally eating something. She’s covered this park on foot, from one gate to the other, and never found a scrap of food. Where this dog came across a pack of crackers, she has no idea. She’s almost suspicious of it, except…except she’s sort of ravenous and honestly, even if they are poisoned or something, that’s not the worst way to go.

She can just hear Cecil announcing her death now, ‘ _To the family of Intern Dana…found just outside the dog park…foam around her mouth, lying beside several dead mutts…’_

She considers the most graceful positions to convulse and die in, just in case.

The leader of the dogs nudges the package toward her, and Dana gingerly picks it up.

“Where’d you guys find these anyway?” She asks, mostly curious, still slightly suspicious.

The bulldog doesn’t answer, and when she looks to the three headed leader, he simply licks two of his muzzles, “Classified information.”

“Ah. Of course.”

She shrugs, deciding that not caring and planning ahead for death _is_ in fact the best policy, and pulls the adhesive seal at the top of the package, popping it open. She takes one cracker out and places it on her knee, a makeshift plate for a finger food, and then passes one out to each of the dogs.

They wait much more patiently than she’s ever seen a dog behave around food, all drooling slightly, watching her closely, but never jumping forward to snatch up the offered snack.

Dana thinks, as she passes a cracker to the last of the dogs, that it would be nice if the man in the tan jacket was around. She isn’t sure where he disappeared to, or if he even eats food anyway, but she’s sure he’d appreciate an invitation to lunch regardless.

Which reminds her-

“Mayor,” She says, “I mean. Ms. Winchell. Pamela? Um.”

Not far away, the former mayor watches her from the park bench, one eyebrow raised, and says, “Yes?”

She has the tone of a prim teacher, of a parent, of that one person you always really wanted to impress but always seemed to end up looking like a fool in front of.

Dana holds up the pack of saltines, asks, “Would you like to join us?”

She glances to the leader of the dogs after, suddenly unsure if extending the invitation was even allowed. This isn’t her late night cracker lunch party, after all.

He seems unconcerned though, so she figures she’s fine for now.

The mayor sits up straight, crosses and uncrosses her legs, and Dana thinks she would look better with a desk in front of her. She sits like she’s at a desk, at least, as though she’s leaning over a polished oak surface and considering very serious decisions.

“I don’t want to intrude,” She says carefully.

“Oh no, not at all,” Dana says, just as carefully, though a bit friendlier.

So the former mayor shrugs her shoulders and gets up and comes to sit with Dana and the dogs instead, thanking her, and the little bulldog who found them lunch, as she takes a saltine.

They sit together and nibble on crackers, or snap them up and gobble them down in the case of most of the dogs, and have a pleasant conversation. The dogs do not bring up the time the mayor called them plastic bags, and the former mayor does not bring up the repairs that had to be made to all the property the dogs defaced with graffiti.

Dana does not bring up much of anything at all, instead choosing to sit and listen, learning what she can from each fascinating party.

They work their way through a pack of evenly distributed saltines, and discuss communism in theory versus in practice, and pirates in Somalia, and dismantling the patriarchy.

It’s nice.

Out in the desert, there is a whirring of enormous gears.

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Hiram McDaniels is attending a court date. It has been rescheduled four times already, but this one finally stuck, so here he is, in no man’s land, adjusting his tie and preparing to speak.

It’s one of those midnight court dates where you’re meant to show up with a stack of assorted legal documents and one slain goat in hand. Hiram has all the necessary documents, and his digital watch reads 12 PM sharp, but he has already eaten the goat he’d meant to bring. He feels a little bad about it.

He tells the judge this, standing out in the sand wastes, looking across at the podium that rises out of the ground there on very special occasions. He thinks it is designed in a way that forces people to look up at it, so as to make the whole trial that much more intimidating, but he is a dragon, and towers over the judge easily.

He keeps all his heads politely bowed though, and makes the joke that he feels rather sheepish about this whole thing.

You know, sheepish? Because he didn’t bring his goat?

He laughs, and the sound is a roar that shakes the furthest cliffs.

The judge, a small, shriveled man who seems to be drawn in several different but equally unattractive shades of grey, does not laugh. He does not even smile.

Hiram clears one of his throats.

He makes his case, without a lawyer, admitting that he has committed insurance fraud, as well as several traffic violations, and that he may have, in fact, knocked over a stop sign with his tail while fleeing the scene.

The statement is rather short. He has nothing more to add.

Frowning, the judge asks, through the representative whose job it is to shout things into the desert winds until the defendant hears them, why he is pleading innocent if he openly admits to breaking all these laws.

Hiram shrugs his massive shoulders.

He just thought he’d give the legal system a try, he says.

The judge, frowning deeper, shakes his head. It’s settled, then.

The shouting representative screams the guilty verdict out into the wind, without a pause for the jury, a group of six confused and half asleep citizens, half of whom are still in their pajamas, to decide.

Hiram sighs. It was worth a shot.

He gathers up his legal documents and promptly breathes fire across the whole of the makeshift court room.

As the podium burns and the jury runs screaming, he takes a moment to collect a few semi-precious metals left behind to add to his hoard.

What a shame that the justice system fails so many, he thinks, plucking a golden placard from the crumbling podium.

Clear across town, there is a low rumble.

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.

At 2 AM, the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area, the one that never existed, is even emptier than it would be at any other point of the day. There is only one car in the parking lot, and it is the one with the Night Vale Community Radio bumper sticker on it.

It is now that Cecil Baldwin sits with Carlos, his favorite of all scientists, on the boardwalk of the recreation area, and yawns.

2AM is a tough time to be awake when you aren’t obsessing over a theory or weaving words about the mysteries of the universe.

Cecil has never been much of a night owl when there were not pressing matters or mind bending nightmares keeping him awake. He likes to watch the stars climb up out of the infinite darkness of space at night, sure, but he’s also fond of early morning lightness. Going to bed at a reasonable hour is just the most sensible thing to do.

He suspects that Carlos, on the other hand, has never quite gotten the hang of mornings.

The more time they spend together though, the more they compromise their schedules for each other’s sake, to the point that Cecil is willing to down an extra cup of coffee to stay up and watch for seismic patterns, that Carlos is able to drag himself out of bed or away from his desk to meet Cecil for a breakfast that actually falls within the acceptable time slot designated for such meals.

If that isn’t love, Cecil thinks, he doesn’t know what is.

Tonight is just such a compromise, and though he knew he’d be out at this particular time, having arranged the scientific study days in advance, and tried to caffeinate himself as a preventative measure against sleepiness, Cecil’s eyelids are still feeling heavy.

Beside him, Carlos is yawning as well.

He starts to say something about the science behind yawns being contagious, and Cecil tries to listen intently, since he is really much more into science these days, but he’s too easily distracted by a stray curl of hair out of place on Carlos’ perfect head.

He reaches up and tucks it back where it ought to be, smiling sleepily, and never quite takes his hand away.

Carlos is in need of a haircut, even Cecil can admit that. Just a trim, he thinks, quite loudly and clearly, because the power of thought is not something he takes lightly. The secret police and the government and the universe at large could very well be listening in at any time, and he doesn’t want them to get the wrong idea and order a covert haircutting mission.

Cecil absentmindedly twirls another too-long lock of hair around his finger, sighing softly.

Carlos gives him a sideways glance, slightly confused, and Cecil falters.

“Do you mind?” He asks, suddenly worried that this moment might fall under the long list of times that it is not okay to lovingly stroke Carlos’ hair. It is a literal, extensive list that Carlos made for him in Microsoft Excel and sent him after a few uncomfortable incidents at the super market and in front of the radio station interns.

Carlos smiles, just a little, and shakes his head gently, not enough to disrupt Cecil’s hand. He looks back to the scientific instrument in his own hands, some kind of magnetic reading device that he explained to Cecil on the way over, but which Cecil absolutely does not understand, still, and says nothing.

Cecil runs his fingers through Carlos’ beautiful, perfect, slightly unruly hair, working out the wind-tangles and twisting it up again in tiny, loose near-braids.

He tells Carlos that he really, really does love his hair, and Carlos tells him that there _should_ actually be water here.

Which of course there should be. It _is_ a waterfront recreation area, after all.

Carlos says no, he means _there should be water here_. Naturally occurring. An oasis in the middle of the desert. He can’t explain it, it’s just this feeling he gets, it’s what he’s gathered from the readings here so far.

He looks to Cecil hopefully, helplessly, as if expecting some brilliant insight.

Cecil doesn’t really have anything to offer. He stifles another yawn and suggests that, maybe, Carlos should try to sleep on it. Much as inspiration can strike in the middle of the night, not unlike the giant bat winged creatures rumored to stalk the desert sky on cool evenings,  great ideas can also come about in the morning, after a good night’s sleep.

He smoothes down the hair he’s ruffled up, restoring Carlos to his natural state of perfection, and smiles tiredly.

Carlos nods, slowly, eyes distant, like he hasn’t quite made up his mind to agree with Cecil yet.

Far beneath them, there is a rumbling sound. It is not unlike the rush of water through pipes; enormous, unfathomable waves inside cavernous, winding pipes.

Cecil shivers, moves closer to the body heat beside him.

Carlos mumbles something about redirected rivers, then sighs and drags a hand across his face, rubbing at his eyes.

Maybe, he says, sleep is a good idea.

Cecil pets down the hair at the base of Carlos’ neck, flattens the bits curling up there, and suggests that they get together again tomorrow. Maybe for lunch, since breakfast seems like a distant dream at the moment.

Carlos nods again, and begins packing up the strange device he brought along.

“Unless,” Cecil says, making a valiant effort not to let the pitch of his voice tip up in nervous, overtired excitement, “You’d like to just stay the night.”

He’s pretty sure he has enough frozen waffles to go around. Possibly pancake mix.

Carlos smiles, nods, and stands up. He holds the mysterious scientific instrument under one arm and offers Cecil a hand up.

Right in his ears, Cecil can hear the pumping of his blood, a pulsing rush like water through pipes.

 .

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.


End file.
